Category: Interview

In this week’s These Vibes, the great non-fiction writer and New York Times bestselling author Mary Roach called in to the studio to discuss her new book Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. Her past works include Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.

Mary Roach. Credit: Jen Siska

In Grunt, Roach tackles the varied and interesting science and scientists behind everything that could possibly be done to keep a human beings intact – in all meanings of the word – in the extreme and often bizarre circumstances of war. Of course, it can’t cover everything, but the many topics include heat exhaustion, sleep deprivation on submarines, using maggots to clean decaying wounds (beginning on the battlefield, but now extending to difficult to treat infections), the testing and careful choices made by military uniform designers, misadventures in shark repellant, and quite a bit more. One might think that a topic like how they make and test the fabric for an infantry uniform would be really dry – but it’s really…not. Roach has an informal style that somehow manages to handle dark and serious topics with care, but without being too over-bearing. Grunt is both light-hearted and big-hearted, while being outstandingly informative, and without ever – not for a second – being dry. (She has a similar style to Bill Bryson, an author I love dearly. He wrote A Walk in the Woods and A Shot History of Nearly Everything, just to name a couple.)

Mary Roach on a parabolic flight, doing research for her prior book, Packing for Mars.

Clearly, I sincerely enjoyed reading this book. There’s this kind of interplay between what we naively think should be the case in a situation (e.g. maggots are gross and we should steer clear) and what’s actually going on when you (or Mary Roach) do a bit of research (maggots are outstanding for cleaning difficult wounds).

As I was reading I kind of came to think of it as a nerd’s beach read. Do pick it up!

Update: Mary Roach did a fun question/answer on the various terms she learned while researching for Grunt. Check it out here:

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A Few Upcoming Events in STEM.

Playing with Innovation: The Games of Joseph WeisbeckerFebruary 25, 2018 at 1:00 pm – 3:00 pmDavid Sarnoff Collection, Roscoe West Hall, The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Rd, Ewing Township, NJ 08628, USAExplore the history of the microcomputer revolution from a new angle: through the creative inventions of Joseph Weisbecker, an RCA computer engineer and board game designer who made learning about computers fun for all ages. Hosted by the David Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey Open Wednesdays, 1--5pm and Sundays, 1--3pm www.tcnj.edu/sarnoff

Science on Tap: Nadir Jeevanjee on Climate Change, How do we know what we know?February 26, 2018 at 7:30 pm – 9:00 pmTriumph Brewing Company, 138 Nassau St, Princeton, NJ 08542, USAScience on tap is back! This month it's Nadir Jeevanjee on climate change, answering the question: "How do we know what we know?" More information to come. (Time currently listed as 730pm, as that's what we're guessing. Will update later with the official time.)